1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system and method for self-teaching, including self-teaching of young children, including children having developmental disabilities. The system of this invention includes apparatus for sensing an audible word or command, or movement of a young child for effecting a computer generated response to said movement or said audible word or command, wherein said response can include a graphical depiction of the letters of said audible word or command, an object image corresponding to said movement or audible word or command and an action or object related to said audible word or command, or any combination thereof. More specifically, in the case of o lder children, the system may provide a series of links, similar to the Encarta Encyclopedia, to web pages on the Internet and the like, where it directs the child to additional sources of information concerning the subject of the learning exercise.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The main purposeful activity undertaken by young children is play. From a developmental perspective, play is often considered as practice for the child""s later roles in life. Through play a child can explore the environment and gain knowledge regarding the physical laws governing objects, socialize with adults and peers to gain important interpersonal skills, and use his or her imagination and begin honing the pathways for conscious thought. Thus, it can be argued that play in humans is a tool leading to perceptual, conceptual, intellectual and language development, the basic building blocks required for the formulation of higher cognitive fimctions.
For healthy children, very early childhood play is either oriented toward physical objects or toward symbol manipulation. Meaningful verbalizations may not yet be possible. However, eventually through play, the child begins to attach specific names to objects. Soon afterwards, more complex sentences are learned and the child talks to himself or herself in order to achieve specific activities. Meaningful self-speech, when activity and verbalization merge and the child can say what he or she is doing, is believed to be a significant point in intellectual development. Self-speech is eventually made non-verbal, and we talk to ourselves through specific mental activities. This is often referred to as self-reflective activity and occurs throughout childhood and even adulthood. For self-reflective activity to occur, one must be able to recall and manipulate specific memory events. The brain system that this refers to is working memory which is theorized to have both a verbal/language component, a phonological loop, and a visual imagery component, the visuospatial sketch pad.
The child""s brain is different from the adult brain in that it is a very dynamic structure that is evolving. A two year old child has twice as many synapses (connections) in the brain as an adult. The young brain must use these connections or lose them. Thus, failure to learn a skill during a critical or sensitive period has important significance. According to Dr. Michael Phelps, Chairman of the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology of the UCLA School of Medicine, the learning experience of the child determines which connections are developed, and which will no longer function.
Dr. Patricia Kuhl, a Speech Scientist at the University of Washington, reports that babies are born xe2x80x9ccitizens of the worldxe2x80x9d in that they can distinguish differences among sounds (temporal, spectral and duration cues) borrowed from all languages. They are ready to learn any language they hear, but, by six months of age, they start to specialize in their native language.
Dr. Susan Curtiss, Professor of Linguistics at UCLA, who studies the way children learn languages, notes that in language development there is a window of opportunity in which the child learns that first language normally. After this period, the brain becomes slowly less plastic, and by the time the child reaches adolescence, the brain cannot develop xe2x80x9crichly and normally any real cognitive system, including language.xe2x80x9d
It is known that the greatest period of intellectual development potential for a child is before the age of three. However, children do not normally start any formal education until age five or six, and infants typically in an ideal family only receive one to two hours of daily intellectual stimulation.
It would, thus, be advantageous to provide a virtual play and educational environment for children, including those children whose learning experiences have not been adequately developed, or for medical reasons have been slow to develop. Such a virtual educational environment would be advantageous for several reasons: developmental milestones may be achieved more quickly; the child may learn to distinguish between images and scenes created from multiple images; and it may give the child a vehicle for self-reflective activity and thus be a seed for the development of imagination, consciousness, and communication. One such virtual learning environment system is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,815,147 (to Bogen, et al. issued Sep. 29, 1998).
Notwithstanding the advances set forth in Bogen, et al, i.e., virtual play environment, the potential of such environment has been limited by its focus on children with limited interactive capabilities, and the fact that interacting is preprogammed and not based on the child""s spontaneous behavior. Clearly the potential of such a system, which has yet to be more fully realized either by both children with special needs, or by children not similarly encumbered, has not been filly realized because of such limited focus (children with learning or physical disabilities). Thus, the Bogen, et al, system is inherently limited because of its failure to provide adequate interaction of the child with the virtual play environment through the use of multiple interactive input; and, a more varied or comprehensive set of learning objectives (lessons) to retain the child""s interest. Accordingly, there continues to exist a need for such enhancement so as to provide a learning environment wherein each child, including those with limited physical and/or emotional development, can cause the environment to react with it in some meaningful and responsive way; and, encourage the child to look beyond a possible limited learning environment to related subjects in alternative sources of such information.
It is the above and related objects of this invention to remedy the above as well as related deficiencies in the prior art.
More specifically, it is the principal object of this invention to provide a virtual learning environment system which is both interactive, and responsive to a user""s prompting by any one of a number of commands or input, including voice and physical movement.
It is another object of this invention to a provide virtual learning environment system wherein the system is responsive to multiple inputs from the user.
It is yet another object of this invention to a provide virtual learning environment system wherein the system encourages or trains the user to provide successive multiple inputs, as part of a progressive learning experience.
It is still yet anther object of this invention to a provide virtual learning environment system wherein the system directs the user to a pathway alternative to said system based upon said multiple inputs from the user.
The above and related objects are achieved by providing a virtual learning system environment which provides for the progressive education of children, at their own pace, through enhancement in both language arts (e.g. spelling, reading comprehension) and physical skills (interactive prompts). The system of this invention includes a microphone and video camera for sensing an audible word or command, or user movement, and means for effecting a computer generated response to said audible word or command, or user movement, wherein said response includes both graphical depiction of the letters of said audible word or command, an object image corresponding to said audible word or command and an action or object related to said user movement, or said audible word or command, or any combination thereof, so as to effect a progressive learning or teaching experience.
The inventive system specifically includes use of a video camera, focused, for example, on an infant in a crib or at play. Motions of the infant are detected by the video camera and may be utilized by an associated computer to create and/or manipulate objects on a video monitor visable to the infant. Thus, for example, the infant will be able to manipulate objects in a virtual environment to enhance his or her motor skills.
The system also provides for a mediator which, for example, could monitor the infant""s learning progress via the Internet and have the ability to modify the software associated with the infant""s computer to modify the learning process depending on the progress of the infant user.
The system may also provide direction to a pathway alternative to said system based upon said learning progress. More specifically, in the case of older children, the system may provide a series of links, similar to the Encarta Encyclopedia, to web pages and the like, wherein it directs the child to additional sources of information concerning one or more aspects of the learning exercise.
In the preferred embodiments of this invention, the system includes multiple and interactive modules for receiving and responding to input information (hereinafter also xe2x80x9ccuesxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cuser queriesxe2x80x9d), in the form of audible sound commands and visual images, from the user (child). In each instance, the combination of cues are processed by the system and converted to digital information that can either provide voice and image response, or voice and animation, or voice and animation and integration/display of a real image of a toy or the user within a virtual environment generated by the system, or any combination thereof.
The virtual learning system environment can be biased to teach a particular skill (e.g. spelling), or the child can be allowed to select his/her preference in a particular area. In each instance, the preference could be pre-set to provide a corresponding response in a learning format geared to the preference. The spelling preference would, thus, be responsive to the child saying a word, which would then be displayed as the object along with the correct letter spelling of the word. Where the child""s use of a word referred to something personal to the child (e.g. head, leg, etc.) the display could add camera input (a picture of the child""s head) to the video monitor in order to both illustrate the object and to develop a sense of the child""s appreciation of its own physical being.
The responses to the audible and visual cues provided by the system could be pre-set by the parent or a remote mediator, based upon the skill or lesson the parent or mediator desired to develop or measure. It is emphasized that the system is responsive to multiple cues or prompts from the user, so that if, for example, the parent or mediator desired to test or evaluate the child""s comprehension and physical coordination, the lesson could involve the child putting on or taking off an item of clothing. Thus, the child could be asked to both follow verbal commands and perform a physical task. The image of the child could be inserted on a doll, and instructed to dress or undress the doll on the video display. Thus, the child""s ability to comprehend and follow simple directions could be taught and/or evaluated. Similarly, basic math skills (e.g. counting) could also be taught. The combination of both audible and visual input, and corresponding feedback from the virtual learning system, would, thus, not only provide a more realistic teaching environment, but also increase the child""s interaction with the system, a critical factor in teaching children, including those children whose attention span may be limited.